Til Buttercups Do We Part
by TearsByMoonlight
Summary: An in-depth character study into Chara and Asriel's relationship. Takes place before the game starts - it's a retelling of the story Asriel tells Frisk at the end of the game but with my own added details. Rated T because it deals with some heavy topics. Complete.


A/N: Hey, everybody! Moon here! Hope you all are having a fantastical day! Recently, I've been thinking a lot about the premise of Undertale, specifically the backstory of Asriel and Chara. I was inspired by a text post that took me like two hours to read that explained how Chara is most likely the narrator and is shaped by Frisk's actions and is therefore not necessarily "bad." Kudos to the person who wrote that. I was also inspired by a roleplay forum I'm a moderator for. We have a lot of fun there. Shout out to NinjaTaleFan19, CharaAndBlue, and Tigerflight for being awesome and making it fun to RP Undertale! So, without further ado, please enjoy my little one-shot! It's just a character study of Chara and Asriel's less-than-perfect sibling bond. It's a retelling of their story but with my own added touches. Let me know if I made you cry like my sis (Ninja) did!

If you asked Asriel Dreemurr if he ever truly knew what he was doing on a daily basis, he'd probably stumble over his words and say something along the lines of how he knows what he needs to and follows Chara. That's enough.

If you asked Chara herself if she knew what she was doing, without a doubt, she'd smirk and say she did. She always knew exactly what she wanted to do and would find some way to get it done.

They were like night and day; Chara, cunning and dark as the night, and Asriel, innocent and cheerful as the day.

Destiny entwined them. When Chara fell Underground, the two immediately bonded. After a while, they called themselves siblings and introduced themselves as such.

The kingdom rejoiced at the adopted addition to the royal family.

Asgore and Toriel treated Chara like their own daughter. Asgore would drink tea with her and teach her about monsterkind since she was fascinated by it. He'd explain the war, different monsters, and how the barrier was what kept them Underground. They also played chess a lot. Toriel would brush through Chara's hair and teach her all about life...and snails. She would read to her and teach her how to bake pies when she wasn't brushing her hair. Chara's hair sure got messy, though, with all the running around she and Asriel did on a daily basis. But the two parents were ecstatic to raise another child who seemed to accept them as her parents. The family was very much accepted and loved on both ends.

It was actually a miracle that the two children got along so well. They were very different; one, an outcasted human, and the other, the prince of monsters. One jaded and cynical, the other bubbly and optimistic.

But the two grew to be inseparable. Nothing could get between them. They'd have snowball fights and eat nice cream in Snowdin, running around the Gyftmas tree and giving citizens presents at that time of year. They'd climb the mountains in Waterfall, and Chara would push Asriel into the water and laugh at him when his fur poofed up when their mom dried it with a hairdryer. They'd mess around in Hotland with the other monsters and Gaster's experiments, and there was a number of times they almost fell into the newly-constructed CORE. Nothing in the entire kingdom wasn't in their domain.

Their friendship wasn't perfectly sunny, however. Chara and Asriel differed greatly in disposition. Chara was fine with sacrificing herself for the sake of monsterkind. Asriel was not.

So when the time came that Chara was about to eat the buttercups from out in the garden, Asriel didn't know what to do. Was it worth it? Was it worth losing his best friend for this? He couldn't bring himself to kill the six humans Chara wanted him to. He wanted their plan to succeed, but that would go entirely against his morals. It wouldn't be right to slaughter innocent humans, right? Even after the war and the cruelty of humans to monsterkind, Asriel believed they could still be good. Chara did not.

Chara wanted to see humanity pay for their sins. She wanted to hold them accountable for imprisoning monsters to a life spent under the surface. The humans, she argued, pushed the war to the edge by forcing monsters into the Underground. It was natural that they should be punished, no? Justice needed to be served. But Asriel believed humanity could make up for their sins. As long as they treated monsters fairly if they made it back above ground, he felt they could achieve redemption.

Chara never saw this happening. At the rate they were going at, they would be trapped Underground forever. So she took the fate of both humanity and monsterkind into her own hands when she decided it was time for monsters to be free.

Asriel instantly didn't like Chara's idea when she pitched it to him. Killing six humans to free monsters? That didn't sound right. Besides, he had nothing against humanity. He hadn't even been born when the war was fought, and neither had Chara. They never witnessed the true heartlessness of humanity during the war.

So he made sure Chara knew he wasn't on board with the idea. They were living a good life Underground. No one was complaining. Chara was easily accepted into his family from the beginning, and by now, they were for sure siblings. The kingdom didn't shun her and trusted her wholeheartedly. They were happy with their lives.

Were Chara's actions to free monsters selfish? Maybe. Were the plans ill-thought out? Possibly. But she went ahead with it anyways. Once she put her mind to something, she was absolutely determined to see it come to completion.

So any time Asriel protested or tried talking her out of it, she always turned the blame on him. Asriel would naturally freak out and exclaim that he always trusted her and would never doubt her.

Their relationship for the next week was sour. It was the same terrible cycle; rinse, protest, wash, accuse, repeat. Asriel desperately wanted to tell their parents, but if he did, they'd remain Underground, and Chara wouldn't trust him again. She wouldn't trust him anymore. He couldn't risk that. So, he kept as quiet as possible. So much so, that their parents were growing concerned about him. Chara would respond for him, saying he was just daydreaming a lot lately.

Finally, came the fateful day. Chara devoured the buttercups. Asriel wanted to curl up and hide. There was no stopping this plan now. That was the point in no return. Chara would die within the next few days, and she would die a very gruesome death. He didn't want to see that. They were siblings. It was painful to just watch her lay there, unable to really move.

She didn't cry out. She writhed in pain and gritted her teeth, but she didn't cry or act like she was all that bothered. For someone dying, Chara was eerily calm. Asriel didn't like that.

Their parents soon realized what was going on. They questioned both of them as to why Chara decided to commit a slow suicide like that. They were no fools. They knew Chara told Asriel almost everything and vice versa. The pair had a bond unlike any other in the Underground. Asriel hated lying to his parents, but he hated the idea of betraying Chara more. He insisted that he had no idea why Chara would do that. Chara appreciated this, and she wouldn't give Toriel or Asgore a straight answer, either. She couldn't. It would break their hearts.

Asriel felt part of his own SOUL die when Chara's last hour was nearing. She looked an absolute mess. She could barely speak or keep her eyes open. He wanted to take all of her pain away. He didn't want this anymore. He didn't think the plan was worth her life in the first place, but the feeling was amplified tenfold on her deathbed.

The Dreemurr family gathered one last time together in Asriel and Chara's shared room at Chara's bedside. Chara's breaths were increasingly getting shallower and shallower. Asriel's heart was beating faster and faster. Toriel and Asgore's expressions kept darkening and darkening. It was almost time. Both parents pleaded for Chara to keep fighting and not give up. They wanted this to be a bad dream. They wanted her to be okay. Chara was touched that they cared so much - although they were her parents now, so she shouldn't have been surprised - but it was too late now. A person couldn't come back from buttercup poisoning.

Asgore and Toriel left the room when they believed Chara was gone. Toriel kissed her forehead before they left, and the distraught parents needed some time to grieve and tell the kingdom the terrible news...away from Chara's body.

Asriel poured his heart out to Chara's dying body. He didn't even know if she could hear him anymore. She wasn't quite dead yet. He could feel it in his soul. The tears wouldn't stop. He'd wipe them away only for brand new ones to spring out of his eyes like a dam breaking. He gave up trying to wipe them away. He begged for her to come back. He promised that he'd do anything else Chara wanted to do for the rest of time if she came back. He whispered how much he loved her and didn't want to lose her.

This wasn't okay; it never would be. In fact, it put a permanent strain on their relationship.

Asriel tried speaking to her a final time. He mumbled how he wasn't okay with the plan. He didn't want to go through with it. He'd do anything to bring her back, and she might not have even been gone yet. He had no idea. He then froze. If she was still there, she'd feel extremely betrayed if he let her death be in vain. He had to carry out her dying wish to save monsters. He promised! So he whispered the details to himself one last time: cross the barrier and retrieve six human souls.

With a heavy heart, Asriel wiped his eyes and practically dragged himself out of the room. He had to wait for her soul to appear, but he also needed to tell his parents where he was going. Chara had come up with the perfect cover-up before she died; she wanted him to take her back to her village and lay her in the golden flowers for the whole village to see. She didn't say this next part, but she wanted them to see what they did. What their sins caused. Their sins caused her innocent death for the sake of all monsters who they so terribly banished Underground.

In a barely audible voice, Asriel explained the cover-up to his heartbroken parents. They told him to be careful and that they loved him, but they were honestly grieving too much to think about the dangers of the situation. Maybe, if they'd been in a better mindset, Asriel wouldn't have met the fate he did, along with Chara after. But that idea is for another time.

Asriel then returned to Chara's room. Her red soul of determination was hovering above her chest. With teary eyes, he reached for it. As soon as his hands touched her soul, his form shifted, and she was back. She was in his head, excited that she could be a part of the action. Neither of them knew that she would be able to come back and live through him. Asriel thought she was gone forever. He was happier now that she was back with him, but he couldn't shake his uneasy feeling.

Both of them had control of exactly half of Asriel's body. Chara was the one who gently picked up her own corpse. Together, they walked to the barrier and made their way above ground. Asriel was amazed by this brand new world. He'd never seen such beauty. The Underground was beautiful, but not like the surface. He had to quickly shake that thought, however, when Chara snapped at him to focus on the task at hand. They trudged back to Chara's old village. Her thoughts and comments to Asriel suggested that she despised it there. It would make sense for her to want to take six souls from her village, then, if it was supposedly so terrible.

They set down Chara's body in the golden flowers right in the middle of the village. Asriel was uneasy. It didn't take long for the villagers to come out of their homes in horror and stare at the grotesque monster before them. To humans who hadn't seen monsters in years, Asriel looked absolutely terrifying. And it looked like he had just killed the human child he'd carried to the flowers. Chara was ready to put the plan into action. Now that they had people's attention, they could just pick six people to kill and get breaking the barrier over with.

Asriel froze up. His morals kicked in at the wrong time. Before Chara could use his magic to hurt anybody, Asriel resisted. He couldn't do this. He couldn't kill innocent people. That was not how he was raised. That was not who he wanted to be. The price was too high to pay for monsterkind to go free.

Chara was ready to use magic, and she nudged Asriel with her part of the control, saying how they needed to do something then or they'd get killed themselves. Asriel didn't talk or listen. He stood there. Chara couldn't totally overpower him to fight. Soon, people with guns and knives and pitchforks were running at him. They were surrounded with no escape.

Asriel knew arguing would be of no use. Explaining that he didn't kill Chara wouldn't make them stop. If Chara had taught him anything about humanity, it was that humans had determination, and they will see things through to the end. So he allowed their shared body to be impaled and mutilated. Better him than innocent people...even though he was innocent as well.

When there was an opening and it appeared that the humans were leaving, both of them with their combined control ran back towards home, back towards the Underground. Asriel's strength was waning fast, and he couldn't leave like this. Not yet. He had to talk to his parents again. If this pain was as bad as Chara felt at the end, then he was dying. As they ran and jumped back down Mount Ebott, tears were slowly trickling down his face. Not just his own tears, but Chara's.

They failed. They didn't save monsters. Who were they kidding? They were just a pair of kids. They couldn't do much of anything, even together. Not only the weight of failure was on Chara's mind, but the fact that now her best friend was dying. She didn't mind being dead now. She had nothing to go back to other than Toriel and Asgore, and while that made her sad, she didn't mind death. Everyone would get over hers eventually, anyways. She just happened to be the first human of many to fall Underground. Asriel's death, though...she didn't want that. He was too innocent. Too nice. Too good for this world. And the kingdom would never get over the prince's death. Little did Chara know, though, that the kingdom mourned both of their deaths equally; in their eyes, Chara was the princess of monsters.

Asriel's entire body was on fire by the time he returned home. He shouted for their parents from out in the golden flowers. He couldn't spare the last of his strength to run inside; he wouldn't be able to say everything he wanted to say.

At his tone, both of his parents rushed out. He was lucky they even heard him. His mother and father were dumbfounded. How could things go so wrong? They should have paid more attention; they should have forbidden him to go. Asriel tearfully explained everything that happened. The plan, how it failed, and how much he loved them and would miss them. Both of his parents hugged him, and Toriel was planning on calling a monster to heal him immediately, but to everyone's horror, Asriel shared body turned to dust right in the flowers. The only time he had left was the time to explain. Asriel's and Chara's combined souls were then visible, and they both shattered with a heart-wrenching cracking noise.

Asriel's and Chara's spirits saw each other for one last moment before Asriel was doomed to remain in the flowers and Chara was doomed to remain a ghost that could not awaken in the same flowers unless another determined human came along.

The kingdom was devastated along with the king and queen. They all had lost the prince and princess. Almost every monster lost hope. Chara was the hope of all monsters! She was going to help set them free by talking peacefully to the humans; they thought she was their ambassador. Now, that hope was crushed. The kingdom fell into a slump and hard times.

Toriel and Asgore's marriage grew rocky. Both were mourning, but the way they handled themselves was much different. Asgore swore to avenge his fallen children and waged war against humanity. They would kill any humans who fell Underground so that way they could break the barrier and be free. He promised this to the people...and for the first time in a while, the kingdom was hopeful again.

Toriel, however, was absolutely disgusted with this plan. She argued with him that despite their children's fates being sealed by humanity, they could not fight fire with fire. The humans misunderstood Asriel. They were wrong, but who were monsters to kill them, too? It wasn't right, no matter how she looked at it.

They divorced after a little longer. Toriel ended up taking Chara's body back with her to the Ruins. Asriel's dust was irrecoverable. She had to bury Chara alone, but she knew Asriel would always be with Chara, so burying her was like burying the two of them anyway. She planted some golden flowers above her grave and only ever returned to water the flowers occasionally.

Asgore planted as many golden flowers in his hall in the castle as he could. They were Chara's favorite flowers, and he was reminded of both of them by having them around him. But now, he was alone.

The entire situation was hardest on the two of them. First both of their children die, and then a bad divorce? Could things get any worse?

Yes. Yes they could. But that story is for another time, maybe...

For now, let's just let Asriel and Chara rest, alright?


End file.
